63 0 M a y 2 0 2 6 s i c kp r o d u c t i o n s . o r g V e n u e s a c r o s s G r e a t e r M a n c h e s t e r
Photo:Jemima Yong & Hannah Ballou, (I) Miss America
This is not a festival as usual. This is a pulse check. SICK! has a new rhythm. Creative Resuscitation: Festival CPR shifts our biennial festival to a year-round movement. A tempo that turns audiences into creators. Swaps burnout for sustained care Starts a cultural flow between local roots and global partners.
Beat One is where we begin.
The first pulse in a cycle of bold experiments. Beat One creates space for participants, artists and partners to Collapse what no longer serves, Prototype and prepare, and Reimagine the future of SICK!
This is our invitation. Make meaningful, joyful and courageous art with us. Test ideas, start conversations and discover with others Shape the next Beats Help define what SICK! becomes.
We believe that art led by lived experience improves wellbeing. Rooted in North Manchester and extending beyond borders, we choose to create, not wait, for fairer futures.
Join the first Beat. Help build the rhythm. Reimagine lives through art, together.
Creative Resuscitation is a rehearsal and a reimagining.
Festival CPR is how we do it.
A living prototype of programme strands, our Presentations, Social Prescribing and Creative Pathways are animated by performance, participation and collective care, unfolding over time.
Presentations
Engage with vital artists and artworks that put lived experiences of health, inequality and identity centre stage. This is where differences become dialogue and ordinary people respond to extraordinary circumstances.
Social Prescribing
Build confidence and spark connection through inclusive, artistled sessions that support mental wellbeing. Find practical tools for self-expression and shared experience that inspires.
Creative Pathways
Get right into the heart of things. Shape ideas, influence commissions and build skills for the future. Don’t just watch, be a co-creator with real cultural ownership.
WED 6 Building the Auntiverse (Crumpsall) 11am EXXY 8pm
THUR 7 Pro Workshop: Dan Daw Creative Projects 11am EXXY 8pm
WED 13 Stories of a Queer Home 6pm SAT 16 Building the Auntiverse (Harpurhey) 11am
TUES 19SAT 23 Come From Away 7.30pm (2.30pm Sat)
THUR 21 Making an Artwork for Harpurhey Ponds 6pm
MON 25 Dinner with Krishna Istha & Geetha Shankar 6pm
THUR 28 Rage Room - In Bed With My Brother 6pm Making an Artwork for Harpurhey Ponds 6pm FRI 29 (I) Miss America (2026) From 6pm Philosophy of the World 8pm SAT 30 Music and Mental Health with Hypes 2pm SICK! Notes - Poor Lass and SICK! Ambassadors 4pm (I) Miss America (2026) From 4pm Piñata and Processing - Girl Gang Manchester From 4.30pm Philosophy of the World 8pm A Revolution Without Dancing Is Not Worth Having 9pm
VENUES
SICK! is a Nor th Manchester based ar ts organisation that works with and for communities. This year ’s Festival CPR brings a renewed focus, connecting our roots in Nor th Manchester with cultural spaces across Greater Manchester, while continuing to work closely with local venues.
In Beat One, we present work by some of the UK’s most exciting ar tists in venues across the city. At the same time, we begin developing new ar tworks with people in Nor th Manchester. These new works will grow and be shared in the Festival’s later Beats.
ACCESS
Harpurhey Neighbourhood Project, M9 5PR
Abraham Moss Library, M8 5UF
Lowry, The Quays, Salford, M50 3AZ
The Horsfall, Ancoats, M4 5AG
NWTAC, 270 Lightbowne Rd, M40 5HQ
Contact, Oxford Rd, M15 6JA
Access is at the hear t of SICK!’s work and Festival CPR. Access provision for each event, including BSL , audio description and venue specific information, is available on the booking links for each event.
We want to make sure that ever yone who wants to take par t can join in. If there are any barriers that might stop you from attending, or if you have any access requirements, please email info@sickproductions.org or message us on 07985588370 and we will do our best to suppor t you. When getting in touch, please include the title of the event and your full name.
E X X Y
Australian slang for “that’s expensive, mate”
Photo: Hugo Glendinning
EXXY (Australian slang for “ that ’s expensive, mate”) takes us on an epic, tender, and unflinching journey back to where Dan Daw began working class, with ver y little. Expect bold stor ytelling, raw humour, and a fierce challenge to the value systems that shape who gets to create, who gets to dream, and who pays the price.
Presented by SICK! in partnership with Lowry.
“Truly remarkable (and) life-affirming” , The Herald
“Hilarious, ferocious, devastating – and an incredible night out ” , Sydney Morning Herald
BSL interpreted by Vicci Ackroyd on 7 May.
EXXY is a SICK! co-commission, also co-commissioned by Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Battersea Arts Centre, Transform, Take Me Somewhere, and Tramway as part of the New Dimensions commission, and further co-commissioned by Kampnagel, Fabric, Edinburgh International Festival, Sadler ’s Wells, and Les Halles. Supported by Arts Council England and Cockayne – Grants for the Arts (10th Anniversary), EXXY is an Unlimited International Strategic Commission made possible with funding from the British Council, and co-produced by Battersea Arts Centre
Wed 6 - Thurs 7 May 2026, 8pm
Dan Daw Creative Projects (DDCP) is a UK-based, disabled-led company creating accessible touring work that blends dance, theatre and activism, while driving systemic change for d/Deaf and disabled ar tists and audiences. Their work centres disabled bodies in non-disabled spaces, using per formance to challenge perceptions and reclaim space.
Their work has been presented extensively in the UK and internationally, including at Sadler ’s Wells and Sydney Opera House. Find out more: dandawcreativeprojects.co.uk
Written
Irene Sankoff and David Hein
by
Presented by The NWTAC Players
Photos: Ella Horniman
The NWTAC Players are proud to bring to the stage the remarkable and uplifting hit musical Come From Away following the previous awardwinning success with RENT, as part of SICK! Festival, in 2024.
Come From Away is based on the true story of the time when the isolated community of Gander, Newfoundland, played host to the world. What started as an average day in a small town turned into an international sleepover, when 38 planes, carrying thousands of people from around the globe, were diverted to Gander’s airstrip on September 11, 2001. Undaunted by culture clashes and language barriers, the people of Gander cheered the stranded travelers with music, an open bar and the recognition that we’re all part of a global family.
Told through joyous music, heartfelt storytelling, and an ensemble cast bringing dozens of characters to life, Come From Away is a moving celebration of compassion, community, and humanity at its best.
Tues 19 - Sat 23 May 2026, 7.30pm , (matinee 2.30pm Sat)
Founded in 2009 and based in Moston, Nor th Manchester, Nor th West Theatre Ar ts Company (NWTAC) is dedicated to making per forming ar ts accessible. It operates as a vibrant creative hub, offering training through the Nor th West Stage School (for ages 7+), alongside a professional touring company and an intimate 84-seat theatre venue that suppor ts local productions and emerging talent.
Find out more about NWTAC and how you can get involved at: nwtac.co.uk
Image: Josh Quinton
In Second Trimester, trans performance artist Krishna Istha and his mother, Geetha Shankar, confront pregnancy, loss, gender, and the weight of inherited memories in this cinematic, Bollywood-inspired epic family saga.
One Stage. Two Generations. Endless Drama. Based on a true story, Second Trimester asks: how well can you ever really know your parents?
The anticipated second show in a trilogy of work, following the critically acclaimed 'First Trimester'. ‘Addictive’ - What's on Stage
Second Trimester is a SICK! co-commission. Also supported by a Making Waves Major Commission by Battersea Arts Centre Made possible with funding by Arts Council England and Cockayne 10th Anniversary Grants for the Arts Additionally Commissioned by Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Cambridge Junction, Lowry, and Marlborough Productions
Wed 27 - Thurs 28 May 2026, 8pm
Krishna Istha is a London-based per formance ar tist, writer and comedian creating bold, socially conscious work exploring gender, race and sexual politics.
They have written for Sex Education and featured in Hannah Gadsby ’s Gender Agenda. Their theatre show First Trimester has toured internationally and received major award recognition, including an OFFIES nomination.
Krishna also develops work for film and television, alongside leading workshops and talks with ar tists and young people worldwide. Find out more: krishnaistha.com
An event for trans people and their parents, guardians, or significant elders in their lives, including chosen family.
Photo: Anna Hay
Join Krishna and Geetha, creators of Second Trimester, part of this year’s SICK! Festival, for a community dinner for trans people and their parents, guardians, or significant elders in their lives, including chosen family. Come together to share food, conversation, and connection.
The exact city-centre location of the Dinner will be sent to you once you have reserved your spot.
This event is part of the SICK! Community Dinners programme, which brings people together around shared identities and experiences to build connection, mutual support, and solidarity.
Mon 25 May 2026, 6-8pm
At SICK! we see community as fluid and self-defined, shaped by lived experience as much as place. These dinners create welcoming, informal spaces for connection, conversation, and exchange.
They play a vital role in shaping our work. In the lead-up to the 2024 festival Where’s the Media Now…?, dinners across Nor th Manchester brought residents together as a sounding board for ideas, helping to shape a programme rooted in the voices and priorities of those it was created with and for.
Par t of SICK!’s Festival CPR - Beat One, this special Community Dinner with Krishna and Geetha (Mum) connects directly to per formances of Second Trimester, offering an intimate, intergenerational space that deepens themes of family-making, care, and connection. Inviting audiences into shared stories, conversation over food as par t of the festival experience.
Venue disclosed following reservation.
BOOKING
IN BED WITH MY BROTHER
H I L O S O P H Y O F T H E W O R L D
a show about The Shaggs, the best worst band in the world
Photo: Fotómetro
Ridiculed then revered, The Shaggs defied categorisation. IN BED WITH MY BROTHER attempt to wrangle their story into a three-act biopic. Part tribute act, part feminist reclamation, part rambling flight of ideas. PHILOSOPHY OF THE WORLD is about fate, freewill, power, patriarchy, band t-shirts, daddy issues, and the best worst album ever made. It’s about who holds the power to define you - who gets to say whether you’re a legend or loser - who owns the right (and the rights) to tell your story.
Featuring questionable mime, high-intensity dance sequences, awkward crowd work, stage combat, cheap wigs, jump scares, philosophising and a well trained actor, IN BED WITH MY BROTHER twists Rock ‘n’ Roll history into a sticky, sweaty, searing rebellion.
Presented by SICK! in partnership with Contact.
'
Fri 29 - Sat 30 May 2026, 8pm
In Bed With My Brother (IBWMB) are Nora, Dora and Kat — three mates making bold, anarchic, high-energy, loud and political performance, blending live music, storytelling and design.
Their work explores masculinity, identity and human connection, earning critical acclaim and award nominations for its distinctive, emotionally power ful style. Their shows have toured across the UK and internationally, including festivals in Australia, Hong Kong and Prague. Find out more: inbedwithmybrother.co.uk Contact, Oxford Rd, M15 6JA
(I) Miss America
l Girls are safe in the USA... until they're born.
SCREENING H a n n a h B a l l o u & P e t e r C a s e
(I) Miss America is a multidisciplinar y live ar t project by London-based American expatriate ar tists Hannah Ballou & Peter Case evoking the central hypocrisy and the dystopian present of Post-Roe v. Wade, gun-loving America, in solidarity with people fighting for abor tion rights and bodily autonomy across the globe. Free, no booking required.
Fri 29 May, 6 - 7.45pm / Sat 30 May, 4 - 7.45pm 4:49 minutes, takes place within an installation setting . INFORMATION
Photo: Jemima Yong & Hannah Ballou
SCREENING
Ahead of per formances by Krishna Istha and Geetha Sankar ’s Second Trimester, experience screenings of Sperm Donors Wanted!, a bold, funny, and intimate work where Krishna inter views potential sperm donors live, diving into queer familymaking, connection, and the search for the “per fect ” donor. The film incorporates excerpts from First Trimester, offering a candid and compelling glimpse into the origins of this journey. Free for Second Trimester ticket holders.
Manchester-based grime artist, rapper and performer Hypes is one of the leading figures in the northern urban music scene, known for his complex lyrics addressing topics such as mental health, education and the legacy of the Windrush generation. He is currently developing a new multi-media music theatre show – The Treatment – exploring hyperactivity, the ADHD brain and adult diagnosis.
In this workshop Hypes will perform tracks from his forthcoming show, explore his writing techniques through practical exercises, and open up discussion around mental health and music. This workshop is part of SICK!’s Social Prescribing programme and is supported by a Mental Health Practitioner.
Sat 30 May 2026, 2pm - 4pm
SICK!’s Social Prescribing programme connects people to creative experiences that suppor t wellbeing, reduce isolation and build confidence through the ar ts.
Working with ar tists, healthcare providers and community par tners, the programme includes SMASH, a year round programme rooted in Nor th Manchester, and MINDGAMES, which explores mental health through video game design. SICK! creates welcoming and inclusive spaces where people can share experiences, develop skills and take par t in workshops, events and cultural activities that suppor t mental and physical health. Each year, SICK! work with hundreds of local residents to build stronger connections, improve wellbeing and create pathways into creativity, leadership and community life. To get involved contact info@sickproductions.org
SICK! NOTES
What is making women and girls sick?
POOR LASS X SICK! AMBASSADORS
Sat 30 May 2026, 4-7.45pm
Contact, Oxford Rd, M15 6JA
No booking required, just drop in!
Join us for SICK! Notes, a project by Poor Lass and SICK! Ambassadors that asks women and girls in Manchester and beyond: what is making you sick?
Around each Festival Beat One event we invite you to share your 'sick notes' - stories, thoughts and ideas that you write down and post in our unmistakable giant pill bottle that marks our collection point. Then on 30 May, at Contact, have a go at zine making with Poor Lass and chat to our SICK! Ambassadors about what is making you sick and how we can come together to feel better.
Help us shape what happens next as the project evolves.
Sat 30 May 2026, 4pm - 7.45pm
The SICK! Ambassador Programme places young women at the hear t of the festival's ar tistic process, not as audience members, but as active agents shaping the work. Rooted in community and driven by lived experience, the programme suppor ts young women from Nor th Manchester to collaborate with ar tists, develop their voices, and contribute to work that reflects the world as they know it.
In 2026, SICK! Ambassadors have been listening closely, gathering stories, experiences, and truths about the pressures and inequalities shaping ever yday life for women and girls. In collaboration with ar tist duo Poor Lass, they now enter a new phase of collection during Festival Beat One.
Poor Lass are Em and Seleena, an ar tist duo whose zines, podcasts, events and workshops all aim to sharing working class stories.
BEYOND SURVIVAL: International
Time Travel
Tracing overlapping post-industrial histories through par ticipator y, bordercrossing stor y telling , installation , sound and performance.
Between March and November 2026, commissioned ar tists will work with communities in Oulu and Manchester to uncover complex and surprising connections between place, industr y and belonging transforming these stories into new ar tistic works that resonate across cultures and generations.
As par t of SICK!’s Festival CPR – Beat One, Creative Pathways workshops will invite the public to become co-creators, with two ar tists leading open sessions to shape and develop new work together.
These new ar tworks will be presented as par t of the Oulu 2026 European Capital of Culture and SICK! Festival . The collaboration is suppor ted by the Finnish Institute UK and Ireland .
OULU MANCHESTER
Photo: Jemima Yong
How do we make a place a home as queer people?
Join composer Michael Betteridge for a welcoming workshop exploring identity, community and belonging through music, stor ytelling and shared creativity.
If you identify as LGBTQ+ or are an ally and want to explore themes of home and queerness in song, we would love for you to join! If you cannot attend this workshop but would like to get involved, contact info@sickproductions.org.
Wed 13 May 2026, 6-8pm, The Horsfall, Ancoats, M4 5AG
Making an Artwork for Harpurhey Ponds
How can we make an artwork with and for the water?
Star ting this May, as par t of Festival CPR – Beat One, and continuing into June, join ar tist Niki Clough for a series of creative workshops where your stories and connection to Harpurhey will directly shape an ar twork made for and placed at Harpurhey Ponds.
If you cannot attend these workshops but would like to get involved, contact info@sickproductions.org.
Thurs 21 & 28 May and 4 & 11 June, 6-7.30pm Harpurhey Ponds, meeting at Factor y Lane entrance, M9
B U I L D I N G B E T T E R W O R L D S Dan
Daw Creative Projects
An opportunity to practically engage with Dan Daw Creative Projects’ (DDCP) approach to making work. Working with directors Dan Daw and Sarah Blanc, participants will use improvisation and text to generate choreographic material, starting with key themes of individual and collective resilience - taken from DDCP’s latest work EXXY. The workshop will include moving, writing, conversation and being in community.
Thurs 7 May 2026, 11am
This event is par t of SICK!’s Creative Pathways programme, presented by in collaboration with Lowr y .
Creative Pathways is SICK!’s ongoing programme suppor ting the next generation of ar tists, producers, and cultural workers, creating routes into the ar ts for those historically underrepresented in the sector.
The programme includes our Ambassadors and Now Fellows, alongside Creative Track developed with the University of Manchester, and a for thcoming PhD collaboration exploring Queer and Trans Healthcare and Creativity. Together, these strands suppor t ar tists at different stages, offering mentorship, paid oppor tunities, and early pathways into cultural production.
Rage Room
I N B E D W I T H M Y B R O T H E R
Ahead of performances of their critically acclaimed show Philosophy of the World, IN BED WITH MY BROTHER will facilitate a space to explore anger through their uniquely visceral and anarchic theatre practice. The group will explore theatrical techniques that allow you to express yourself and purge your rage, becoming fuel for movement, voice, rhythm, and release. It’s immersive, physical, and unapologetically expressive.
Performers and first timers all welcome. We might even smash a few plates.
Join Girl Gang for a drop-in workshop to explore all things joy, rage, systemic injustice and the beauty of sisterhood. Expect crafting, writing, sudden dance and scream breaks, and karaoke moments as we create space to process all that we're carr ying and celebrate each other as we let go. Together we'll stuff our writings and creations into a giant piñata that will be smashed during our Afterpar ty from 9pm in a moment of release. Open to all genders. Come as you are.
INFORMATION Sat 30 May 2026, 4.30-6.30pm, Contact, Oxford Rd, M15 6JA
Rounding off Beat One, SICK! joins forces with Girl Gang Manchester and DJ The Taxidermist to invite you to the official Beat One Afterparty: A Revolution Without Dancing Is Not Worth Having.
A dancefloor for joy, resistance and radical togetherness, the night will be soundtracked by DJ The Taxidermist (Stacy Faye), spinning house, electro, disco and vocal anthems to keep you moving.
Let the first Beat resonate. Come celebrate with us.
No ticket required just turn up. Sat 30 May 2026, 9pm-11pm
